This is because the core regions tend to exploit the periphery, and the more peripheral those regions are the more economically, democratically and culturally unfair the nation-state tends to be.

Because nation-states tend to have one powerful legislature, one dominant, official language and culture, and a centralised economy run from the centre, the result is that:

1) Those on the periphery have no real democratic control. They may be able to send representatives to the mother parliament but these can be overruled by the larger block.

2) Their own language and culture is eroded by the one favoured by the central state, through education, broadcasting, economies of scale, etc.

3) They tend to be treated as a peripheral economic area to be exploited by the economic core.

National movements aren’t driven by some illogical urge to flags and tradition over people, but about fixing these problems where they arise.

They are about changing what they see as a fundamentally unfair system that leaves peripheral segments of the nation-state at a disadvantage.

In this sense, they serve a highly important role in the world, which is to push back on regional inequalities and demand better treatment from the core.

In the absence of national movements or the threat of national movements, there would be very little to stop the rise of governments that serve very large areas but which centralise political power and wealth in one region at the expense of others.

The EU, for instance, works all the better because the national identities of its southern states is a brake on its tendency to prioritise the economies of the French-German axis.

It is largely up to the core whether they listen to national movements and take action, of course. It is only if they choose not to act do national movements ultimately lead to independence.

Ironically, the response to regional inequalities is often to emphasise the nationalism of the core rather than actually come up with practical solutions to the above problems.

Core

However, rather than seeing nationalism as a tool for solving fundamental unfairness many in the Labour movement continue to consider nationalism as an end goal in itself:

I have never suggested Plaid doesn’t understand . It does. If I was a nationalist and separatist I would be with you. You want a constitutional conflict. But I am not, I am a socialist and want the best for people of Wales. This is my judgment. Sorry if you disagree. https://t.co/yXy7qwE6x6

But nationalism isn’t an end in itself, but a means of reaching a particular goal.

For instance, you don’t have to choose between socialism and nationalism, as Mick Antoniw suggests above.

You can be a socialist and believe that because Wales consistently elects socialist governments but the bulk of the UK does not, the best way of securing a socialist government is more autonomy or independence for Wales.

However, by dismissing nationalism as an irrational urge rather than one that arises as a result of real problems, Labour aren’t doing anything to stop nationalism.

If Labour do consider nationalism in Wales to be a problem, then the best way to solve it is to solve what gives rise to it, which is democratic, cultural and economic regional inequality.

These problems are particularly prevalent in the UK, which has a particularly dominant core and a very weak periphery.

Within the UK we have one of the poorest regions in western Europe (west Wales) and the richest (London).

And we have an undermining of Wales’ democratic will and culture (see the recent Prince of Wales Bridge decision as an encapsulation of both).

The current Conservative UK Gov seems to determined to inflame nationalist sentiment rather than take steps to mollify it.

But neither have successive Labour governments done much to solve these problems either, and in recent years seem happy to either stand by or help the UK Gov make things worse.

At the end of the day, Wales needs a nationalist movement at the moment because otherwise, within this realpolitik union, an UK Government completely blind to regional inequality wouldn’t have any reason to care whether Wales is treated like a peripheral internal colony or not.

‘Power grab’

Labour’s criticism of Welsh nationalism is all the more jarring because they are, to a certain extent, a Welsh nationalist party themselves.

For all their ‘nat-bashing’, Labour understands all of the above at a base level, because they are very happy to use nationalism when it suits their electoral need.

The same Mick Antoniw dismissing nationalism above posted this banner during last year’s election campaign, which is positively dripping with the discourse of nationalism: